The story “Sharp Corner” is about a family with a small child who buy a house in the countryside, where real estate prices are much cheaper. But their enjoyable first night in the country gets ruined quite quickly. It turns out the house is located right next to a two-way road that slices through the tall fields and shrinks into a narrow two-way road. The sign before the turn tells the driver it is a sharp turn, but it is covered with thick bushes. Even If it wasn’t covered, the sign would be useless since it is too far from the turn for speeding drivers to actually slow down in time.

A family is haunted by the first crash, but there is another, and another. Each crash or near-collision propels the family further apart, eroding the safety that homes are meant to provide. The father, played by Ben Foster, gets so focused on preparing to save anyone who ‘might’ survive that he begins training for the next crash. Rachel, the mother, played by Cobie Smulders, tries to ride this emotional wave, but eventually loses it, demanding to sell the house and move. William Kosovic plays Max, who starts the story as a very much doted on, privileged child, rich if a tad spoiled. But he also mentally absorbs the violence surrounding him, even to the extent that he begins using toys to reenact crash scenes he’d seen in real life.

You may be thinking, “This movie sounds very dramatic, and I’m sure it’s a good movie, but no thanks.” So that thought is totally reasonable. Things get dark, especially as the focus shifts to Josh and we observe his transformation, unsettlingly, over time. Wanting to save everyone, while impractical, is deeply human and demonstrates what is, at the very least, a flawed disposition that presents redeeming qualities. For Josh, the central issue is that he attempts to mold his life around the hope—or certainty—of the next crash. He buys tickets to CPR classes, starts looking into purchasing his own training dummy, and even attends the funeral of one of the victims.“Sharp Corner” reflects on Josh’s transformation with a blend of empathy and scientific detachment. Foster’s performance draws the character to realistic humanity. He appears to be simply a man undergoing a harrowing experience, not a sociological case study or a representation of modern society's woes. The film encompasses many themes, one being how people grapple with the understanding that death is guaranteed, for us and for everyone we know, and we can't predict or thwart it.

Foster, one of the most remarkable actors in modern film, outdoes himself with what might be his most unexpected performance in recent years. His features ensure he will be tapped to portray brutally violent characters, flamboyantly vicious (“Alpha Dog”), righteously aggrieved (“Hell or High Water”), dutifully wounded (“Leave No Trace”), or ineluctably noble in ways the character doesn’t possess the intellect or self-awareness to recognize (“Galveston”). What distinguishes this performance from many others is that the character’s driving impulse here is to heal, rather than damage or kill.

Another striking difference is that, regardless of all the crime thrillers he’s done, Foster is believable as a guy who may never have thrown a punch in his life. He has a potbelly, slouches, and has an awkward gait. His hair is thinning at the front and he speaks in a soft whiny tone. His calm demeanor can come off as judgmental. There is something about him that makes people think he is self regarding even when he is not. His politeness can be perceived as strategy. And sometimes it is.

The death of the young boy deeply unsettled Josh. He and Rachel host a dinner for couples from the old neighborhood. During dinner, Josh shares with their guests about the shrine the family created which marks the spot of the first crash they ever saw. It was actually quite astounding to see him scrutinizing social media whilst supposedly on the job in his office. But after dinner, Rachel scolds him. She blames him for trying to pass himself off as above everyone else, claiming he has a moral high ground simply because he over-explained a tragic backstory during what should have been a light-hearted chat. She calls him `smug.` Is he? Or is that just how he looks?  

Smulders matches Foster’s exactness and focus only to a certain point. After that, she starts to fade as Josh becomes more and more manic, making increasingly worse decisions. To be fair, though, she’s not privy to how bad he feels all that pain she’s hiding from him, as well as contending with his EMT training supplies. He’s messing up professionally, and making disastrous life decisions while parenting. Rachel may love him, but those factors are culminating in her believing that she can’t stay married to him for much longer.

Are they bound to separate? All of these knowns and unknowns are, in some way, defined or at least hinted at. You just need to pay more attention. Nothing is stated outright, even in therapy scenes. 

Josh and Rachel’s interactions capture some of the most realistic and tedious husband wife conversations that one can encounter in real life, and this is something that most films lack. These conversations are not smooth. These exchanges won’t flank their wives and husbands and partners attempts to win roleplaying soap operas voiced by forty drama school graduates. Typically, they maintain mild room temperature, save for truly desperate situations. Their yelling is strategically limited. The nurturing aspects of caring for their son is a feeling warm, soft, and calm world. Yet as they try to swim in these waters, their words are inescapably saturated with smug rancor, buried deep beneath layers of polite formulation that in any sociological context would be out of context, which in any context would describe Joshua’s putting in Rachel’s car. “Shall we buy a second car already?” and she instantly replies, “Are you saying that because I’m late?” He swears to walk on the moon because she doesn’t make it but still.

Aside from the detailed disintegration of a family in “Sharp Corner,” the film stands out due to its use of thoughtful compositions that contained various details within a single frame and gave us the freedom to choose where to direct our focus. While the camera does a lot of movement, it is mostly for slosow and purposeful, always for reasons such as; to expose or cover something or to build a certain stressful feeling. Godfreys’ Mid 70’s American New Wave feeling suggests That the films capture of darker moments is still rich and clear while never over the top in beauty. Each scene is crafted to immerse you in the movie's reality, to give you the sensation that you're actually trapped within the world of the story. To the sound, the exact geometry of the shots were reproduced with such precision and purpose, broadcasting to you the rhythm of the household, and you start recognizing the signals that warn of trouble. The attention to sound is extraordinary, revealing more detail as the narrative progresses. Eventually, you begin to recognize whether a car is approaching based on how they’re driving.

Stephen McKeon’s score begins with a deep sadness, then evolves into an elegant elegy of sorts. As the tension escalates and the situation becomes more dire, the horns get louder. Shore’s scores for Cronenberg films and Burwell’s scores for the Coens affect us all in a very similar way. What might be happening on the screen seems irrelevant, sometimes absurdly foolish, but the music transforms it into magnificent, albeit ironically, a requiem for broken, twisted lives—twisted and shattered by fate, themselves, or both.

Have you ever watched one of Steven Spielberg's films which goes by the name “Close Encounters of the Third Kind?” It features regular Midwestern residents tormented by UFO encounters and plagued with visions of a miracle in progress. If the answer is no, make sure to do so. “Sharp Corners” would create a delightful double feature with it, not because of the striking parallels in imagery — although Foster somewhat resembles Richard Dreyfuss, the star of “Close Encounters,” and vice versa, and there are two moments in each where a deranged father tries to convince his family not to drive off and leave him against his will — rather because both movies focus on people who have something utterly out of the blue happen to them, not just once, but time and time again, and in turn payback respond to in the form of devoting themselves to all-consuming work. Roy constructs sculptures for his visions and clarifies them. Josh signs up for a lifesaving course and practices compressing their chest and performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. All night long, the two men remain static, transfixed by the view of a road with a bend and waiting for the lights to come back.

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